Cornell DeVille

The Adventure Begins.

2012-02-01T11:32:00.007-06:00

On March 16th, fans will be able to order this long-awaited epic steampunk adventure released through Musa Publishing.

The first of the Golden Disk Adventure series, Cannibal Island is a race against time to a fog-shrouded island to acquire the mysterious disk purported to be hidden there.

As a tease, and to keep the book in the mind of the reader, three monthly ads will appear in the Penumbra magazine. The first one is shown here.

Giveaway Cancelled

2012-01-28T15:46:00.003-06:00

Since we received practically no response to this giveaway after three days, I've decided to cancel it for the time being and postpone it until after the book is released. Keep checking for updates as we near the release date.

Best Books of December 2011

2012-01-25T01:14:00.004-06:00

We spoke on Monday about your author platform, and we mentioned Facebook and author pages. Today I wanted to add another site you should add to your arsenal: Goodreads.
My YA thriller, Lost in the Bayou, has been on Goodreads since it was released on December 2. But I'm beginning to realize what a powerful and valuable tool it can be for an author.

I found out today that Lost in the Bayou is currently in the #2 position for the Best Books of December 2011 on Listopia at the Goodreads site. That's a great honor for me, and I certainly appreciate all the support the book has been given. However, Cassandra Clare is currently occupying the position I'd like to claim. So, I'm going to find out how many people read this blog, because I'm going to ask each of you to visit the link below and give me your vote. It would be a great accomplishment, not only for me as the author, but for Musa as a new publisher. I promise I'll be forever grateful.

So, if you can spare a moment, and you'd like to make my day, head on over to Goodreads and cast a vote for Lost in the Bayou. Here's the LINK.

Lost in the Bayou Trailer

2012-01-24T09:58:00.003-06:00

I previously posted an article on how to make your own book trailer. Here's a LINK to that post. And here's a follow up showing a trailer that was done professionally. This is for my new YA thriller that was released in December 2, 2011 through the Euterpe imprint of Musa Publishing. It's been getting great reviews, so if you're into the thriller genre, with a touch of nostalgia, you may enjoy it. Especially if you're a Baby Boomer. If you're a Kindle user, or have the free Kindle for PC or Kindle for Mac, check it out HERE. If you have NOOK, go HERE.

If the trailer makes you want to know more, there's also a mini website that has a lot more information to whet your appetite until you can get your hands on the book and join Robin and Andrew as they head toward the Voodoo Swamp to escape their crazy Uncle Conrad.

Enjoy it HERE.

Your Author Platform

2012-01-23T15:05:00.008-06:00

We've all heard the news. If you're going to be an author, especially a self-published one, you need a platform.

I recently wrote an article on this very subject, but it's so important that I wanted to post another one just to drive the point home. If you'd like to read the first one, along with a good smattering of great links on the same subject, here's a LINK to it.

What I wanted to concentrate on in this post is the Facebook phenomenon. Nearly everyone has a FB presence today. And there are new pages being set up every hour of the day, even as I write this and as you're reading it. So, because it is so popular and growing, because it's now considered the "thing to do," you need to be there.

You can start out with a simple personal home page. Then, you can create a personal page. Most writers create an author page that their fans can visit and post questions or comments. You can post the art for your new cover (that's always exciting!). Or you can include a link to your "buy" page on Amazon or B&N. You can link to your blog where you've posted an excerpt or a character interview. There's lots of things you can do. The important aspect of all this is that your author page will give you another marketing channel. You'll have different visitors than you have on your blog. Different friends than you have on Twitter. It helps expand your universe.

On a personal note, my personal page is getting very close to the 5,000 friend limit that Facebook imposes. Because of that, I've created an author page. It's currently gaining some new followers. It's important that you promote it so you can increase the number of friends who follow you. Those are members of your potential market.

If you'd like to visit my author page, here's another LINK. I hope you'll "LIKE" it.

Yay, Goodreads!

2012-01-22T22:29:00.002-06:00

Today I wanted to spread a little publicity for a great website known as Goodreads. I don't know how many readers there are who visit that site, but I know there are a ton of them. If you're a reader, this is a great place to find new books and read reviews of books that other readers have left.

If you're a writer, Goodreads is also a great addition to your marketing and publicity mix. You can set up an author page, post your books, and get reviews. Also, your book can get added to lists. My YA thriller, Lost in the Bayou, is current on The Best Books of December 2011. It's in 7th place from the top. Naturally, I would love for it to move upward because more readers are likely to pick it if it's closer to the top. If you're not busy, here's a link where you can go and vote for it. And I would be very grateful for that.

Lost in the Bayou, Best Books of December 2011.

Designer creates award-worthy cover

2012-01-18T14:48:00.004-06:00

Artists sometimes do not get the appreciation and the notoriety they so justly deserve for their wonderful talents. I have just received a final art file from my Artist Extraordinaire at Musa Publishing, and I wanted to sing her praises.

Her name is Kelly Shorten, and, aside from being an absolutely, wonderfully talented and fantabulous designer, she is a dream to work with and has a bit of a psychic or clairvoyant ability. She read my mind and created the exact image I was visualizing for this cover.

Take a look and leave a comment. I absolutely love it.

Winner Winner Chicken Diner. (No Chicken.)

2012-01-16T23:54:00.002-06:00

If you want to click that square icon on the far right sidebar, that will take you to the contest post and you can read the winner's name, selected randomly by Rafflecopter. If this happens to be you, please go to Facebook and search for Author Cornell DeVille.

Once you find that page, click the message button and let me know it's you. I'll need to know which of the two shirt you want, what size, and where to ship it. Congratulations! I look forward to hearing from you.

Today is the day

2012-01-15T11:32:00.001-06:00

You've been waiting, wondering, and hoping, and today is the day we find out. Of course, it won't be until midnight, but at least it's today. If you're not part of the party, there's a big square icon on the top of the right sidebar with a question mark on it. You can join the others by just clicking that and following the instructions.

Good luck!

Have you met Conrad?

2012-01-14T12:38:00.003-06:00

Have you? If not, you probably don't know that he has a shiny metal claw where his left hand used to be. And you're probably not aware of his fixation with the Lone Ranger. If you haven't read Lost in the Bayou, you probably don't know who Uncle Conrad is, unless you've been paying attention on here or visited Amazon.com and read the blurb.

But even if you aren't familiar with him, you'll have to admit that both design are pretty cool for a t-shirt. And one of them can be yours if you want it. So just click that icon on the top right and that will take you to the right place where you can fill in your information. It ends tomorrow, so don't delay.

Authors need a press kit

2012-01-13T09:00:00.000-06:00

In todays teeming internet and digital media world, there is a continual search for interesting things to write about. Bloggers are always on the lookout for new material. As a newly published author, you and your book fall into that "new meat" category.

There's an anxiously waiting market for that information, and you need to have something to send when requests come flying into your email. At this point in your career, you might be wondering what to send so you project a professional appearance. Well, read on to learn all about it.

In order to provide the best information to the press and the bloggers who are going to write about you, you need to create a press kit that contains, among other things, a basic bio, some information about your work, and a great photo of your beautiful likeness. Providing this information will make it easier for others to write about you, and it gives you a quick and easy way to respond to requests for information.

Saundra Mitchell has put together a great article on this very subject. I've included a link to it at the end of this post. She tells us that...

There are 5 basic elements in a press kit:
1) Your biography
2) Contact information
3) Your photo
4) A synopsis of your most current work
5) Representative art for your most current work

And she describes each one of those items in detail. Rather than reinvent the wheel and recreate what she's done such a wonderful job in putting together, here's a LINK to her article.

The Key Elements

2012-01-12T01:00:00.047-06:00

Listen to the mustn’ts, child.

Listen to the don’ts.

Listen to the shouldn’ts,

the impossibles, the won’ts.

Listen to the never haves,

then listen close to me…

Anything can happen, child.

Anything can be. ― Shel Silverstein

Melissa Donovan has included the great passage above in her article on Writing Forward entitled Excellent Writing Tips from Successful Authors. And it’s appropriate that she begins with that, because inspiration is always the first requirement of creative writing. You may be the best mystery plotter on the planet, but until you have an idea of where you story is going, that skill isn’t going to do you much good. A swift kick-start of inspiration is the best solution for getting things churning around in your head so you can transfer those thoughts to your anxious typing digits.

Once you’ve been inspired and have an idea of where you’re going to take your anxious reader, you can begin. You need to begin with a bang. I've posted on this subject before, but it's my firm belief that a great opening is the best way to greet your new reader. The following opening lines is from Stormbreaker, and it's one of my favorite beginnings.

When the doorbell rings

at three in the morning,

it's never good news.— Anthony Horowitz

So a strong start is key to whetting the reader's appetite. But you can't fail to deliver. You need to keep their interest high as the story unfolds. If you don't, they'll put your book and pick up another. And when it comes to knowing how to maintain a reader's interest, Jodie Renner is one of the best. She's a creative writer and a professional editor who has written a great post about how that’s done. This is a three-part series entitled Tension on Every Page. You can read the first installment (and it’s very good) at the Writer’s Forensics Blog.

So, you’ve got the inspiration, you’ve grabbed your reader with a fantastic opening paragraph, and you’ve just completed the first draft of chapter one. You know you’ve got to keep going or you’ll never finish this masterpiece. So how to maintain that productive attitude and keep churning out those 2,000 words a day? Ann Aguirre has the answer for you. Her post on Writer Unboxed, entitled Five Productivity Tips, is an excellent treatment with some great advice.

So there you are. You’ve got the ingredients of a great novel right here on this page. Now all you need to do is get inspired, keep the tension on the pages, and remain productive. Before you know it, you’ll be typing The End. As we all know, that’s when the editing begins. But we’ll talk about that another day.

http://www.writingforward.com

Book Trailers 101... Easy and Fun

2012-01-11T10:00:00.010-06:00

A while back, Myrlin Hermes was a guest blogger on Nathan Bransford's great blog for writers. In his post, he shared the process of creating a book trailer using Windows Movie Maker, which you can download for free! It's very intuitive. I didn't even need to read the "How to" section, although it's there if you have any difficulty getting started.

I gave it a try. I have to tell you that I had more fun than a kid at an amusement park. It's very easy to use. One other item of value was the link to a website called Incompetech, which provides free downloads of royalty-free music tracks. And there's a ton of them to pick from! You can spend a half day listening to find just the right soundtrack for your trailer. What about art and graphics? Those are free as well. Here's a great site with thousands of photos, clip art, just about anything you need to put together a great, professional book trailer: Photos and Art. So, if you have a PC, download the Windows Movie Maker program and start exploring the possibilities.

If you have a Mac, don't despair (why would you ever?) because there's a program built right into your Mac that's just as good as the PC counterpart. It's called iMovie, and I've been playing with it, too. The example above was created with iMovie. I like it just as well, although both programs are slightly different in the way you move through them.

I also found a few other sites where you can get great stuff—for FREE! If you'd like some old black and white movie clips that are in the public domain, visit Public Domain Flicks. Another site with great video loops of different types can be found at Stock Footage For Free and Vimeo. Give it a try. It's all free and you just might discover something you really enjoy doing.

Now, you have no excuse. Give it a try if you're so inclined. You may be amazed at what you're capable of creating! I'm wondering if a high quality video trailer might someday replace the old (so-hard-to-write) query letter that we just talked about. What do you think? Leave a comment. Maybe we can start a trend.

Writing the Perfect Query Letter

2012-01-10T19:30:00.000-06:00

It's been a while since we've done this. But we have so many new visitors that it's time once again. We're going to talk about the bane of all writers, the horror of horrors in the world of writing, the DESPICABLE QUERY.

Oh, we hate them. Yes. We do. But they are a necessary part in the wooing of an agent. So, since they are so important, we need to be able to do them well. We need to be able to do them so well, in fact, that the agent simply MUST request a sample of the work.

There are lots of resources on the web that deal with how to write a query. They all say pretty much the same thing. There are specific formats and rules for content that writers need to follow. And if they wander off that straight and narrow path, they better have a really good reason.

So, let's take a quick look at the skeleton of the query. Here's a shopping list of all the items you need to include:

Salutation.

Make sure to say "Dear" and make doubly certain you have the agent's name spelled correctly. Failure in this initial area can result in an instant trip to the circular file, regardless of how well the rest of it is written.

Introduction.

This is where you tell the agent the genre, the word count and the title. Here's an example.

Since you have an interest in middle grade fantasy, "Parry Hotter and the Half-Baked Prints" should be right up your alley. It is complete at 1,000,000 words.

Any creativity you can add to this section without over-reaching and ending up too cutesy can help encourage the agent to read on.

Body.

This is the meat and potatoes. This is where you really need to get the agent's attention. Even though you mention supporting characters, this section needs to be centered around the main character. All events should relate to that character. Also, keep the stages of THE HERO'S JOURNEY in mind as you write this part. (Orphan, Wanderer, Warrior, Martyr). For a more descriptive explanation of that, check a previous blog post HERE.

As Steven King said, "The road to hell is paved with adverbs." Keep that in mind and don't overuse them in the query, just as you don't overuse them in your writing. Avoid cliches, too. An agent can spot those as if they were printed in red ink, in bold type, italicized and underlined. Also, since the query isn't a synopsis that lays everything on the table, you want to end with a cliffhanger of sorts so that the agent simply MUST find out what happens next. That will encourage a request for a sample, which is the sole purpose of the query.

Credits.

If you are published or have other notable accomplishments, this is the area to list that information.s.

Closing.

This is where you hurry away by simply saying thank you and that you will be happy to send a partial or a full at their request. Then you say "Sincerely" and type your name. You're done.

BUT DO NOT HIT THE SEND BUTTON YET!

Go fix yourself a cup of coffee or a glass of iced tea. Have a Dove bar or a Ferero Rocher, a Ghiradeli square, or a Lindor Truffle. Wait five minutes or so and then go back to that document and read it from beginning to end. Correct any typos, grammar, phrasing, order of sentences, adverbs, cliches, punctuation, whatever you need to fix to make it The Perfect Query Letter.

Once it's perfect, check the word count. If you're over 250 words, you need to compress things a bit. Total word count for a query is typically around 250 words. If your novel is over 70,000 words, you can expand on that number a bit, but 300 words is typically the point of no return.

After fixing everything and making it absolutely perfect, do not send it to the agent of choice. At least not yet. Send this version to a writerly friend, or post it on Absolute Write for other writers to pick apart. Whatever you do, don't be in a rush to send it until it has been given the seal of approval by at least two or three other writers. Then you can send it. But check it again before you do and run that spellchecker program on it one last time.

And that's a summary of How To Write a Query Letter.

Feel free to leave a comment below. And speaking of below, don't forget to enter our contest for the coolest Lost in the Bayou t-shirt on the planet. Scroll down to check it out.

Contest Begins Today!

2012-01-08T14:56:00.019-06:00

Here we go!

As you learned from the previous post, we are having a contest related to Lost in the Bayou. By entering, you have an opportunity to be named the WINNER of one of the two T-shirts shown in the previous post. You get to pick whichever one you like. You get to pick the size and whether it’s a men’s or a women’s style shirt. It will be short-sleeved and black. It’s 100% pre-shrunk cotton.

The Rafflecopter widget below will keep track of your activities and make sure you get entered. Here’s what you have to do:

1. "LIKE” my page. http://www.facebook.com/cornelldeville

2. Tweet a message about this contest.

That’s it. The contest begins RIGHT NOW! and will end at midnight EST on Sunday, January 15^nd, 2012.

Now here’s a BONUS! I want to encourage you to pass the word along to your followers and friends. The more, the merrier. Here's why:

If we get 200 entries, we will double the prize and award two T-shirts to two randomly selected winners. With 300 entries, we will award three prizes. So the more entries, the better your chances to win.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

A New Contest - With a Prize!

2012-01-06T19:01:00.004-06:00

We are going to have an activity designed to provide some additional exposure for Lost in the Bayou and result in a nice prize for one lucky winner. We're doing this prior to our big event that's coming up January 27th. I haven't posted that info yet, but it's coming, so be prepared for a BIG giveaway on that one.

This time, we're giving away a T-shirt. Obviously, it's a T-shirt based on Lost in the Bayou. I have created two designs. If you're named the winner, you can select either one. But, just out of curiosity, leave me a comment on which one you prefer. I may print some extras to have on hand, and I'd like to know which one you like better. So here they are.

T-SHIRT NUMBER 1 is on top.
T-SHIRT NUMBER 2 is on the bottom.
You decide.

A little tease

2012-01-05T15:52:00.007-06:00

I am so pleased that Lost in the Bayou has been getting such favorable reviews on Amazon and elsewhere. The video above is a book trailer that's currently on YouTube. In addition, I thought I would post a bit of the first chapter today (a slightly condensed version) to see if I could entice some of you into wanting more. (I'd like more please, sir.)

In the opening scene, we join Robin and her younger brother, Andy, as they wait on the veranda of their Louisiana mansion. Their parents have disappeared in the bayou a week earlier, and their only living relative, their Uncle Conrad, has been named their guardian. Robin hasn't seen him since she was a baby and has no memory of him whatsoever. Andy has never seen him. He's about to arrive at the Sherwood Estate.

* * * *

In Louisiana, summer wraps around you like molasses. Thick and sticky. July is hot and humid. Always. August is worse. And the summer of 1963 has been a record breaker so far.

This morning, the sky is cloudless. It’s muggy, and there’s no hint of a breeze to blow away the pestering flies or the lingering stench of whatever crawled under the porch and died a few days ago. The rhythmic buzz of locusts fills the air, but it stops suddenly as a deep rumble comes up the road. My heart races as the sound rolls across the terrace and toward the covered veranda where we’re waiting.

There’s an uncertain look in Andy’s eyes when he glances up at me, and his voice is thin as water when he speaks. “He’s coming.”

“It’s going to be all right.” I squeeze my younger brother’s narrow shoulders and give him a reassuring smile while trying to hide my own fear of what’s heading toward us. Since our house is quite a distance from the wrought-iron entrance gates of our estate, we have a minute or so before the car gets here.

Andy stares down the long driveway toward the entrance, waiting and watching. The sound is getting louder. And closer. The locusts have gotten used to it and started buzzing again, their cadence in time with the seconds ticking by. Andy and I stand side by side at the porch railing, waiting to face whatever the future has in store for us.

A white sports car comes into view with a cloud of gravel dust following closely behind it. The morning sun reflects off the polished chrome in a brilliant silver flash. The car continues up the long driveway until it reaches the circle. It makes a slow turn around the big fountain in the center before coming to a stop.

We wait for the driver to emerge, but nothing happens for what seems like a very long time. Finally, the car door opens slowly, and a tall man wearing sunglasses and a serous expression steps out. As we watch, he turns his back on us and removes a couple of bags from inside the car. He’s heading toward the veranda now and getting closer with each step. I force a smile as he walks toward us.

He’s almost to the porch now. As he gets nearer, my smile starts to fade when something confuses me. The sun is reflecting from a strange object at the end of Uncle Conrad’s arm. It looks like metal. Large. Silver. Shiny, like the chrome on his car. What is that thing? As he gets closer, a flurry of horror rushes through me as I realize what it is.

Oh, God!

It’s a claw.

A good example of showing

2012-01-04T12:03:00.006-06:00

Although this blog primarily relates to books, communication is the primary subject matter. And even though books have long been the primary medium for storytelling, a few years ago the technology of the motion picture came into the world and offered another method of engaging the audience.

While books and film are obviously two distinct mediums, the basic manner of telling a story remains the same in both. I thought today we could take a look at a short clip to demonstrate how the process of telling a story is the same regardless of the medium, and how showing is so much more interesting than telling.

This scene begins like a good book should start: We have an opening visual of two characters. The characters tell us that it's raining and that we're in California. Their dialogue takes us right into the story and we know what's going on: These two are in love. And from his dialogue, the character played by Gene Kelly lets us know that he's about as happy as a feller ever gets.

From that point on, his actions illustrate (show us, not tell us) how he feels. The lyrics of the song help explain his emotional state, but through it all, he is showing us, through actions and expressions, what's going on in his head and his heart.

Take a look. Keep this clip in mind the next time you sit down at your computer to write a scene. Show the reader what's going on through the character's actions and words. It will make for a much stronger scene.

What's your writing style?

2012-01-03T20:00:00.004-06:00

The article below originally appeared on this blog in February 2010. I have altered it somewhat to refresh it, but I decided to keep the original twelve comments, since they add some additional insight into writing. I hope you enjoy it, and I hope you'll share your writing techniques by leaving a new comment.

I read a post on Cordelia Dinsmore's blog this morning that got me to thinking about how we write. It brought a question to mind, and I figured this would be a good venue to ask it.

The question is simply this: How do you write?

Do you start with a well-developed idea, pencil in a plot line, create character models, outlines, scene-by-scene synopses? Or do you begin with the barest hint of an idea and let the story and the characters develop as you hit the keys? What do you do?

I’ll be the guinea pig on this one. Even if you’re eccentric and quirky, when you read my method, your process won’t seem nearly so weird, I’m sure. At least I don't think it will seem so weird. I guess we'll have to see about that after you make your comment.

When an idea floats into my head from wherever those things originate, I think about it for a couple of days. Sometimes a couple of months. In the case of Lost in the Bayou, it turned out to be over fifty years before I actually got started. But that's an exception, for sure.

During that incubation period, I jot notes while sitting in the McDonald’s drive through, or waking up in the middle of the night. You never know when an idea might sprout in your dark subconscious and push its way into the light of awareness. I figure out what the protagonist wants, and what is preventing her/him from getting it. I come up with a setting that works for the situation my characters are about to find themselves in. I figure out who the rest of the characters are—most of them anyway. And how they're related to my protagonist, or antagonist, and what their individual agendas might be.

After I have a general idea of the plot, I consider which point of view would make the most sense for the writing and provide the reader with the most enjoyment. I sometimes write a few pages in first person and then alter it to third to see how it sounds or what advantage a change in POV might create. I play with the idea for a couple weeks, making notes, figuring things out (somewhat) and then start writing Chapter 1.

Before I write very much, and after I've gotten a better concept of my characters, I switch hats and become a casting director. I figure out the perfect actors for each of the roles I’m creating for the movie that’s going to play out in my head as I write the story. I surf the web for photos of the actors I’m imagining in those roles. I print them out and tape them to the wall beside my computer, with their character names on them, so they can be there ever second of the day as an inspiration. I try to imagine the characters saying the dialogue I’ve written (until I get to the point in the story where they start speaking for themselves and I have to type as fast as possible to keep up with their words. It's surprising sometimes how much they know.)

Sometimes things change—and sometimes it's for the worse. Maybe that brilliant idea for a sub-plot suddenly fizzles when I realize there is no way in the world my protagonist would get into such a ridiculous situation. Or the villain is way too smart to fall into that lame trap. So I have to rethink it. If I’m lucky, an even better solution emerges. If I have written a lot of material when I discover the faux pas, a few, or several, changes may be required. So I head back to Chapter 1, page 1. I typically edit as I write. It is an obsession I am trying to change. It's resisting. As my mentor, Stephen King says (over and over) in 11/22/63, "The past is obdurate."

Eventually, the first draft is completed. I email it to Kinko’s and have a copy printed. Then, I sit on my front porch in the sunshine, drinking my morning coffee from my mug with all the Australian creatures on it (yes, I do know what a bandicoot looks like! Thank you, Trish.) and I start reading while my purple pen scribbles marks all over the pages. Edit mode. I sometimes wonder what I was thinking when I constructed a particular sentence and used specific words that could have been so much stronger and exceedingly more visual. I remove all of the unnecessary dialogue tags. It's amazing how many you can do without. And on it goes, until I have an even better version than the original “masterpiece” I thought I had created.

Now, it’s your turn. I want to know how you write. How do you start? What’s do you do? Give us any unique aspects of your writing efforts. Do you listen to music? Do you have a special coffee mug, or a hat you wear when writing? Our readers' mind’s are hungry to know.

Winner Announced

2012-01-01T10:51:00.002-06:00

Random.org has provided the winning number for our Lost in the Bayou giveaway. The lucky winner this time around is

CHAZ DESIMONE

I will be forwarding a copy of Lost in the Bayou to Chaz as well as the $10 Amazon Gift Certificate. What a great way to start the year. Congratulations Chaz! Enjoy.

And thanks to all the others who participated. We will have other contests and prizes coming up soon. So stay tuned.

Meet Deb Victoroff - Author

2011-12-29T18:18:00.005-06:00

Today it's my great pleasure to introduce my readers to a debut author who just recently signed with Musa Publishing. Say hello to Deb Victoroff. Her most recent work is being released today, and she’s managed to squeeze a bit of time in for us and this interview. So let’s get on with it.

First of all, tell us the source of your inspiration for House and Garden.

Hi Cornell, and thank you for hosting me. I know you’re busy with the release of your own novel, Lost in the Bayou, so thank you especially for this!

My inspiration came from a country house (really a shack that aspired to be a cottage) that my old boyfriend Hal and I purchased on a tiny neglected peninsula on Long Island. Just after we bought it he got a new job, which required his working in the city (Manhattan) and meant I would be spending the first weekends alone at the house. I looked forward to this – I was planning on gardening for the first time – making the garden pretty with lots of flowers and a little stone path – perhaps foxglove, irises, Montauk daisies. I had big plans. But first I had to deal with the overgrowth of a backyard that had not been touched in years. There were vines strangling the trees, choking the rose bushes, weaving through the lawn. It was just as I describe in the story: the lawn was like walking on a field of pencils strewn about.

As I confidently started out with my clippers my first mission was to take care of these old vines. But I soon learned that they were too strong for my clippers: I practically took off my thumb holding them and attempting to cut them off the trees. They were simply too strong for my hand strength on the clippers, and the clipper blade kept slipping, always aiming for my fingers. Bugs came out of nowhere to attack me and climb into my shirtsleeves; everything that had jaws or pinchers bit me and stung me. I pushed a wad of weeds into a trash barrel to compact it and the thorns punched through and punctured my hands. As evening came, and the mosquitoes started on my ankles and worked their way up to my face, I was really beginning to feel like the garden did not like me there, trying to gentrify it.

I thought: this is something Stephen King would write about. Maybe I should try to write it myself?

That’s very interesting and a bit spooky, for sure. Let’s switch gears here for a moment and talk a little about how you create your characters. Are they based on people you know, or do they each have a little of Deb Victoroff inside them?

Well, I can only speak to this short story regarding character creation. Although I’ve written short plays, those characters were created out of whole cloth. In this short story, the lead character Elise Lambert is absolutely based on me – but I am only the most skeletal of templates. Elise is not intended to be an adorable chipper, good-natured young woman. She’s a bit of a loner, not good at personal relationships, somewhat judgmental with a superiority complex that comes from assuming that others are going about life the wrong way, and that’s why they don’t “get” her. These traits lead directly to her assumptions about how easy it will be to shape her garden to how she feels it SHOULD look, changing things to suit her. She likes to be in control for sure. She’s a film editor by trade, and the cutting and shaping of stories has given her an unrealistic sense of how life can be modified to one’s tastes.

So I am by trade a film/video editor and although I have no illusions about the real world vs. the filmed world, I thought someone for whom those worlds blurred together would make for an interesting character. Also, I am different from Elise in that I like people and enjoy their company, although I enjoy blocks of time alone for sure. I hope I am slightly less of a social misfit than Elise.

I’m paraphrasing R.L. Stine, the creator of the Goosebumps series, but he said something like “There’s nothing more enjoyable than scaring children.” Perhaps he’ll leave a comment and correct me. My question for you is, do you enjoy scaring your readers?

I would be honored and flattered to scare my readers! I would dread hearing that the story is ok, but not scary, or not scary enough. I don’t know how people will respond to it… talk about scary: writing something and asking the public to read it is absolutely terrifying! I am in awe of writers who can do this well. I remember reading “The Shining” by Stephen King. I started out in my own room reading and by the middle of the story I could not read it if I was alone. I had to be in a room with another person. Same with “Dracula”. That’s a talent I would love to have! For any writer, making the “audience” respond, in whatever way you intend, be it tears, laughter, or horror, that’s the name of the game. A story is ultimately just typewritten symbols, shaped into words, put on paper in a certain order. If you can make another person react emotionally to those words that you as the writer put in an order that you chose, isn’t that something? I typically write humor and to have someone tell me they laughed at something of mine they read is worth about 30 minutes of “glow” for me.

Give us a couple of names. Who are your favorite authors?

Well, the Big Kahuna for horror writers is of course Stephen King. (I know you’re a fan as well!) There’s that perpetual argument about whether his books are “worthy” – most people consider his stuff as pulp or like they do pop music. It causes a reaction but that reaction is elicited by cheap tricks. I can’t join this argument. I have read horror that’s considered “literature”: “Dracula”, “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”, “The Monkey’s Paw”, “The Telltale Heart” and “The Cask of Amontillado” by Poe, and many others, and I can say that they all frightened me. What is really difficult I think is to keep horror and suspense up for the length of a novel. That’s why there are so many great short horror stories and not so many great horror novels.

“Playboy Magazine” which I actually used to read (I had 4 brothers so believe me there were plenty around the house) used to have great short stories – good horror in particular. One of the best I ever read was by the cartoonist Gahan Wilson. Titled “The Manuscript of Dr. Arness”, I think it’s an example of a perfect short horror story. It’s brilliant. I also like Richard Matheson, Ray Bradbury, and Peter Straub. Charles Dickens is my favorite all-around writer and I would count “A Christmas Carol” as a wonderful paranormal story!

Of course I also like chick lit (Nora Ephron, Carrie Fisher), and spy novels (Le Carre, Ian Fleming, Ken Follet), everything really. I must say a book that I read as young kid and which I will never forget is Madeleine L’Engle’s “A Wrinkle in Time”. That story had everything. I was frightened in the middle, and sad and sentimental at the end. I wonder if kids still read that?

Let’s talk a little about your publisher, Musa. I’ve been reading about them on Absolute Write and some other blogs. I understand they’re concentrating their publishing efforts entirely in the digital format realm at the present time. Personally, I think that’s a great idea because the eBook market is exploding and should continue to do well in the future. Did you have any reservations about being solely digital when you signed with them?

At first I approached the idea of digital publication with trepidation. I was one of those who thought I would never, ever give up three-dimensional paper books. But then I downloaded one (“And Here’s the Kicker” – great by the way) and I was hooked. Now I see that it is a perfectly legitimate way to purchase and read books and stories. In fact, I think the digital form may save short stories. There are so few places to publish and read them. And I am very pleased that Musa and I found each other. They are a tremendously hard-working group – a small operation with four cornerstones and several freelancers. I like the choices they are making and also the fact that they represent so many different genres, but not scattershot. They show great respect to the authors and all their books.

Tell us a little about the chronology. What steps led up to the contract?

Musa has a good system. You send them a synopsis and if they like it, they ask to see the first 15 pages. Nail biting ensues. If they like the first 15 pages, then they ask for the manuscript (digitally). More nail biting. If they like the book/story, they send you a contract. Jumping up and down follows.

I’m looking at your cover and wondering if you had to furnish that or did Musa create it for you?

Musa has as one of their cornerstones the artist Kelly Shorten who designs the cover against a template of the Musa logo. She did my cover; I’m not sure if Musa has other artists as well. She read my story to get a feel for what my piece was about and came up with the most perfect image; I couldn’t believe it. It was as if I gave her a photo of the wetlands behind my old house. It had exactly the elements of mystery and bayside growth I imagined. We tried adding an insect to the picture (I have some angry insects in the story) – it didn’t work. Too obvious. We got rid of it. The only issue I had with the image was that it seemed as if it was daytime – Kelly darkened the photo and added shadows under the boardwalk. Then it was perfect.

Okay, let’s stay with House and Garden for a little longer. Give us a teaser and quote your favorite passage from it. Make it something scary if you’d like, but not a spoiler.

Here’s a bit from the beginning.

"We’re home, Solo," Elise smiled, as Solo lifted a leg and peed on a bush, then trotted around the side of the house and disappeared.

Elise unpacked the car and walked up the porch stairs to the front of the house. As she put her key into the door, she felt a wispy touch on her cheek. She reflexively stroked at it, and saw tangled in her sweater cuff, an enormous black spider. She screamed and backed against the screen shaking her hand as if it were on fire.

“Get off, get off, get off!” she cried.

Her heart raced, she twisted and jumped back. She looked again at her sleeve, her eyes wide with fear. Nothing. It must’ve fallen off. She looked down at her feet but saw nothing. Sighing, she said aloud, “My God, what a baby I am.” Her heart slowed a little as she reached for the doorknob.

She looked at her screen. She’d put an elbow clean through it; it looked like a mesh blossom blooming on one side of the door. Her elbow was bleeding.

Well she was a homeowner now, she thought, and this would be the first of many small injuries and home repairs. She blamed it on the spider. Spiders had always frightened Elise; the multiple legs, those horrific faces, and the way they appeared out of nowhere…

“Get used to it, kiddo,” she said to herself, “you’re on their turf now.” Solo came around the corner, inquisitive, and Elise let him sweep by her into the house. “Good boy,” she said. “Let’s get inside.” She followed Solo into the house, turning once more to scan the porch, and closed the door.

Tell our readers one unusual thing about you that we would never suspect.

I love banjo music. I love Bluegrass and banjo specifically. I was the music editor on the HBO show “Sex and the City” for one season (and the assistant for 4). I do not find Brad Pitt attractive at all. That insurance commercial where everyone is “paying it forward” makes me tear up every time. Ridiculous.

Speaking of banjo music, I’m guessing you liked the movie, Deliverance. But we won’t go there this time. Instead, tell us where we can get a copy of House and Garden. Also, will it work for Kindle and Nook and all of those other eReaders out there?

As of Friday December 30^th it will be available for download on musapublishing.com. 24 hours later (I think) it will be up on Amazon and Barnes and Noble’s websites. And yes, there are several formats available so it shouldn’t be too hard to download onto your smart phone, or iPad, or computer, or Kindle/Nook. (sounds like Brundle/Fly)

Well, I’m certain I speak for all of our readers when I say thank you for taking the time for the interview. I know everyone wishes you the best for House and Garden and all your future works.

Triple Dog Dare You

2011-12-21T10:40:00.006-06:00

Here's a new giveaway that's going to put a couple of books in your stocking, or in the stocking of someone you love. So let's get right down to it. This Giveaway is using Rafflecoptor for the first time, so we're going to see how easy that widget is to use. Since we're on a Triple Dog Dare here, there are three requirements: First: You need to tell all your friends about the contest so we can get more visitors and more entries. I'll have to trust you on that one. Second: You need to visit my author page and "LIKE" it. My FB friends count is getting dangerously close to the 5,000 mark so I had to create the fan page. Finally: You need to mention our little giveaway on Facebook or Twitter. Easy Breezy. Right?

This contest runs from now until midnight CST on December 31, 2011. So there's plenty of time. The winner will receive a copy of Lost in the Bayou PLUS a $10 Gift Certificate from Amazon to use at your discretion for anything you wish. The winner will be announced within 72 hours of the contest close. Good luck and let the games begin.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

And the Winner is...

2011-12-19T11:07:00.004-06:00

The field wasn't overly full (we only had ten entries) but the winner has been determined. After taking all correct entries and generating a winning number from a random number generator online, the name associated with that winning position is... (drum roll)

SHARON LEDWITH!

Sharon wins the beautiful coffee mug with the dramatic graphic of the Lost in the Bayou cover. Let's hope she enjoys her beverage of choice and thinks of us as she's drinking it. Actually, she may end up using it as a pencil holder on her desk, but that's fine, too. It's now hers to do with as she pleases.

Congratulations, Sharon! Thanks for participating.

Now, moving on. I'm currently in the process of creating a new contest for our readers. So check back later today and see what the great prize will be this time. It's going to be exciting, I assure you.

The Trailer

2011-12-18T14:26:00.006-06:00

The contest for the beautiful coffee mug is over! I will announce the winner tomorrow, so check back to get the scoop on that. Meanwhile, take a look at the video that's just been released for Lost in the Bayou. Naturally, we would like to get as many viewers as possible, so feel free to pass it along, share it, or link to it. And thanks. By the way, if you need a trailer for your own book, I would be happy to share the contact info of the company who created this one. Their prices are totally reasonable. Just leave a comment and I'll get back with you.

Also, I will be announcing a fabulous new contest Monday or Tuesday. So check back for that, too! Also, if the embedded video is playing too slowly and not loading properly, go to the direct connect at You Tube. HERE.

Time for a Contest! And a prize!

2011-12-14T07:15:00.001-06:00

PLEASE NOTE: THE DEADLINE FOR ENTRIES HAS BEEN CHANGED FROM THE EARLIER POST.

In case you haven't been following along and anxiously counting the days with the rest of us, this is the magical day when Lost in the Bayou is being released through Musa Publishing

Since we haven't given anything away to our dear readers in some time, I thought it seemed appropriate to give away something related to that milestone event.

And that's exactly what we've decided to do. I'm confident that most of you take in some liquids on a daily basis. What's your pleasure? Coffee? Tea? Water? Milk? Cola? Or how about a nice warm mug of cocoa on the coming winter mornings. Well, whatever you like to drink, we've got just the mug to hold it. Check out that photo.

That's the mug we're giving away. A beautiful white ceramic cylindrical contemporary coffee mug with a handy handle (it's a mug) and a striking high resolution image of the Lost in the Bayou cover so artfully created by Lisa Lingenfelter Dovichi (of the Musa Publishing Art Department) and beautifully reproduced in all its splendid and colorful glory. Who could ask for anything more?

I'm sure it's going to be at about this point when the reader is sitting, eyes wide and lower jaw dropped in awe, saying, "Wow! I want that. What do I have to do to get it?" Well, hang onto your saddle horn because I'm about to tell you. And it's so very simple you won't believe it. All that's required is that you leave a comment below this post that contains the answers to the following three questions:

1. What is Robin Sherwood's age at the time the story is written?
2. What are the objects on Andy's tie?
3. What radio program is Uncle Conrad obsessed with?

Can you believe it's that easy? It is! Simply leave a comment below that includes the answers to those three questions and, if you correctly answer all three, you will be entered into a random drawing to get the beautiful coffee / tea / water / milk / cola / cocoa / whatever mug with the book cover image imprinted thereon. It will last forever provided it is not dropped or allowed to come into abrupt contact with a force greater than the tensile strength of its material composition.

A word of warning. Be wary of simply copying the answers contained in the other comments. I have several sneaky author friends who will be leaving comments containing BOGUS and INCORRECT information just to throw you off track. Remember, if your answers are wrong, you won't be entered. Nuff said?

The answers may be found at the Musa website by clicking HERE. Or they can be found when you visit the mini website by clicking HERE. To make certain you come up with the right answers, you can order the book by clicking HERE. And even if you don't win, you will have had an exciting adventure.

This contest will run from now until midnight, CST on December 16th, 2011. Winner will be announced on Monday, December 19th, 2012. Be sure to include in your comment a means of contacting you if you're declared the lucky winner. Contest is open only to entrants with a shipping address in the continental United States.

Best of luck to everyone!